The Cream Off: and Some Myths

By Captain ILIAS GYFTONIKOLOS

The book refers to the following:

Birth to the sea: a short description of the life during the WWII the famine in Greece.
The Sea life: All the individual short stories on board of each ship.
The "gold plated" Syndrome the "humble" opinion of the Author.
The Maritime Accidents.
The safety on the Cruise ships: (I was asked by ladies which Cruise ship is safe).
There are many stories which some will be interesting and unusual.
There is no book that covers the old and modern seamen's life. That is the reason I wrote it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491707968

Captain ILIAS GYFTONIKOLOS

I have finished the Merchantile Marine Academy and I went to sea. I sailed for 47 years on a total of 69 ships and 19 International Companies. (I have applied for Guinness book world records). The last 30 years I Commanded 42 of them, mostly Large and some Very Large Tankers (VLCCs). I have sailed with multi national Officers and Crews from various cultures. Additionally I am an Inventor with 2 patents and a medal winner at the International Inventors Expo Geneva May 1999. At present I am a resident  in Windermere FL, with the intent to become a U.S.A. citizen. I am a retired extra Master.  Also a very successful Herbalist: (I have never been to a doctor or taken any medicine and I am on the "Longevity" World Record "endeavor". (I have a secret Club with over 5,000  "lucky"members) One top Asian Politician when in the U.S.A. was asked what University degree he had! His answer: I have finished a University that gives no degrees:   "Society"! It is prudent for me to write the short stories from all the ships and the visiting ports. There are many "myths" covering the "seaman's life". The only true thing is that it is an extremely tough one! And there are non "exotic" places. I am not writer or a poet, but I followed the advice of my friends to write the book the way I tell the stories. So it is a narrative! An American teacher who read the rough copy of the book wrote me a note: Quote I sarted reading and it made me want to read more and I already know the stories (or at least few of them), So this is positive. For someone reading for the first time, I imagine the desire to read more would be even greater. When I read, I know you are not a native English speaker, for the way you phrase things are from a foreign tongue. However, on a positive note, this adds to the charm of the stories! Unquote The American film: "American Beauty" got the Oscar as the Director left the viewers to guess the END: I humbly ask the readers to understand! Capt. Ilias Gyftonikolos

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Table of Contents

Prologue

PART

ONE

1

From Birth To The Sea

2

Sea Life

3

Maritime Accidents

4

The BP Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill

5

Nuclear Accidents

6

The Gold Plated Syndrome

I went to sea after finishing the Mercantile Academy. The first 18 months were very hard as there were no jobs as it was the big crisis 1958.

After various jobs in Athens, I found work on a laid up tanker and when she was chartered, I signed on as a Deck Cadet.

There I started to understand that the exotic’ stories of the seamen, were just myths I was lucky and blessed by been low key" and believing in securing the job by working hard (I was a farm boy since I was 5). The Captain liked me for this and helped when I left the ship. I didn’t plan to work on 69 ships, but to get a job in a shipping Company we mostly had to bribe or to know someone in the office.

So I started looking to find a good company and when on a ship I saw that it was no future (the locals were promoted, as they were coming from the same island as the Owner and were unfriendly to the strangers!!!).

To survive professionally you had to know far more than the others and every Captain wanted to have an all purpose knowledgeable officer!

When in a Japanese Shipping Company the Top Executive asked me if I had experience as Captain, I answered that I have been with 70 captains and if I had kept the good from their experience, I had an experience of 70+1. He liked it and assigned me to attend the new building oil tankers (I had proved that I knew all about their overall operation), additionally to test as the ship Yard was building their first tanker and wanted my experience in order, to built more of the same size, which they did, relying on my reports.

Experience is not in the books.

I was watching the captains and I knew from the coffee time gossip what was the way of negatively commanding the ship (usually the abusing of power and bragging: (one Captain ironically told me that he was younger and I, was Chief Officer! I answered him that he didn’t know more!) The Officers and crew were avenging by been indifferent and careless causing problems which he had to solve.

(One Chief Officer told me a story that the newly appointed Master called all the officers on a VLCC (very Large Crude Carrier) and braggingly told them that the Company had hired him as expert! and that he had power to fire anyone of them. The C/O then 2nd mate was told by the above Captain that he was not going to be promoted as long as he was in Command: At sea the 12-04 watch 2/O, called him on the bridge at 02am; the reason: the visibility was going to get poor! He showed a cloud on the sky!).

I said to myself I was not going to have the same from my Officers and crew.

Ability is power, but also you have to make the Officers and Crew to think that they "need’ the Captain more than otherwise. (The ship was automatic and I could do the loading – discharging myself in case the Chief Officer wanted to have a hold on me, which happened a few times).

Every joining Crew member knew about that from the others who were with me, in the 400 ship company and it was enough. They were behaving respectfully as they had better life on my ships and the atmosphere was pleasant as everybody was working conscientiously. Additionally they liked the friendly way of dealing, on all matters by saying we have to do and when I wanted to ask something from the senior officers: the request was: Is it possible to?(Everybody knew that I was the Captain It was wrong to try to remind them at every situation. Mostly I did the complicated jobs).

I usually didn’t fire people, but if I was forced to do: It was going to be from the company. We had good food (I trained the cooks as I was a good one also).

I commanded 42 ships without any big problem and a big record of: No Claims on any of them. (I made a bet with the Company’s claims department that if another had the same I would give them $10,000: still I have the money. I was requesting from the ship Owners when interviewed, that I didn’t want wages but the 1% of the other ship’s claims the same period I was on board: They declined!!!!

The North European captains wanted to take over command from me as the Officers and Crew were well trained and they had to deal only with the paper work.

I applied for the Guinness world record book but no answer yet.

In May 1977 I was on a 36,000 DWT oil tanker and loaded with heavy fuel oil, we run aground, with 2 pilots on board, in the Orinoco River and we had 3 punctured tanks.

The company sent specialists to skim the oil from the top but failed, so I devised a patent and skimmed 2,962 tons to another empty tank. The company people were very happy and from that time on, I had all my requirements always fulfilled without question.

I got the International patent (At Geneva International Inventors Expo I got medal) and when the big oil spill at the Gulf of Mexico, I send messages to BP, U.S. Coast Guard, cleaning companies, but the result was negative with thanks:

There were about 7,000 personnel, 700 various types of small ships helping;, they skimmed or cleaned about 7,000 BBLS/day with a cost of $6,000,000 per day.

And My idea was with a big tanker and about $20,000 cost of flexible hoses and with the ship’s cargo pumps, to skim about 100,000 BBLS/day, I only needed 2 tug boats and about 100 people: (A life threatening endeavor from the above lucky ones). One day before I die I will publish a book: THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON! There will be far many who will want to assassinate me!

In any company I worked, most of the heads of the departments hated me as I had the easy access to the top! Mediocre people like to have more stripes than they actually are worth. Mostly it is the fault of the Owner as he likes the servile characters instead of interviewing personnel himself.

The big problem I faced all those years was that when you have required qualifications, you have plenty of enemies against!!!!!!!! (When you load-discharge for instance 85,000 tons in record times; they have to achieve the same).

Everybody has brains but they use it not for learning the job: (One C/O told me that you taught the Crew how to discharge a very difficult cargo; and now they make fun of me).

Additionally I am a Herbalist with a patent, with a multi herbal extract from the ancients for; Enhancing memory and long driving! Never been to a doctor or got medication and I am for the Longevity record!

N.B.I wrote this book as all my friends were urging me to do it, as they said I was a good story teller.

One of them a teacher, after reading it wrote me a note:

It made me want to read more… and I already know the stories (or at least a few of them) . . . . So this is a positive. For someone reading for the first time, I imagine the desire to read would be even greater.

When I read, I know you are not a native English speaker, for the way you phrase things are from a foreign tongue. However, on a positive note, this adds to the charm of the stories…

I dedicate this book to America

After the WWII, at the Elementary school and before that, I was eating the American breakfast

And at home the food which was given to us.

Without that I was not going to be alive to write this book.

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We buy very expensive of everything and mostly over our budget, or travel to (exotic?) places, cruises and much more in order: To show off or to tell!

Every day, I put to myself 10 questions about women to answer, to avoid boredom. I answer some, but mostly I fail: Because no matter in what situation they are, always in their mind is implanted the word: More

An overall successful man is to make the woman to propose him regardless his economic level.

There is a difficult path to the place where happiness passes more often!

The American movie: American beauty got the Oscar, because the End was left to the viewers to guess!

PROLOGUE

A great Asian politician when visited the U.S.A., when asked: what kind of University’s degree he had? His answer: I finished a University that gives no degrees! Society!

A writer boarded a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC), for one trip, in order to write about the operation. (If it was read by a seaman, well he wouldn’t be impressed).

It is prudent to say that, after been 47 years at sea with 69 ships of 19 international shipping companies from which the 42 ships as Captain (it can be an unreachable world record), with multinational and multicultural background Officers and Crews, that I am allowed to share the acquired unique experience and the bitter raw truth about the myths of the seaman’s life.

I am not a writer or a poet, but I believe that the reader will may be learn how to be not a boring person.

I was blessed to have the Providence’s gift of daring for the unknown as I made some questionable decisions which at the end came out successful! Additionally I was delayed by circumstances and not being the bribing type to get a job I got more than enough experience to become a Captain the right time and to reach to the point where I could look the ship Owner direct in the eye and meaning that I can do better what you are doing, but you cannot do what I can. I made no big money, but I kept my dignity and pride intact!

My strong rule was to make my employers to need me more and always I was in a position to leave and go to another Company, without thinking of the cost.

One of the few successful ship Owners of 74 ships (all paid cash) who was an ex Captain went and got an Engineering degree. When he was dying he said: I die but nobody fooled me (this was my future guidance). Name: Stavros Libanos, the father in law of Onassis and Niarchos.

But most of the money I earned went to the family and others:

There are some unusual happenings, which cannot have been achieved by a human The ONE in heaven gave me more than I deserve and can handle!

It is I think, because in my prayers I promise that if I make big money, I will spend it His way!!

Athenian ORATOR ISOCRATES (436-338 B.C.) crying SAID:

Democracy IS DESTROYED:

AS THE RIGHT OF FREEDOM AND EQUALITY IS ABUSED

Because TAUGHT THE PEOPLE TO CONSIDER THE IMPERTINENCE AS RIGHT.

THE LAWLESSNESS AS FREEDOM,

IMPUDENCE OF SPEECH AS EQUALITY

and ANARCHY AS HAPPINESS.

PART

ONE

1

FROM BIRTH TO THE SEA

I was born March 1939 the 5th living child (the first twins the girl was born dead and the boy lived up to 3 years then died from the evil eye: which also I experienced it several times later), in a small farming town, in an one room house with a fire place which was used also as the kitchen, it was the sleeping room for all the family the parents on the bed, and the rest, on the earth floor with straw mats and the weaved woolen covers which were made by my multi talented extremely hard working little: ever 49 kilos mother.

Next to our room was the family’s mule stable with a wooden separation and the smell all over!

My older brother as a baby was of the constantly crying type and the only solution was the rocking cradle to be in constant move.

My mother was taking shifts with her mother in law to keep him quiet.

But my mother was very busy coming from the farm then cooking, washing, making bread etc. She was dead tired and she needed sleep, but the baby was not allowed her to rest a little.

One day she got so mad that she grabbed and threw him at a stone wall of the opposite house. Her neighbor saved him. Mother told me the story later.

1942 during the famine my mother had her last son and the day of his birth, my father came from the cafe proudly congratulating my mother for the son, but she took the baby and threw the baby at his face saying: I didn’t want him you wanted! My father never contributed from the coach transportation job.

She had no milk to breast feed him so she was giving him the water from the boiling of the wild vegetables and squash.1943 we were moved to the newly build country house, my mother had paid secretly without my father knowing the Engineer and the Builder, consisting of 1 room, kitchen with fire place each, plus a store room with the weaving installation and a separate stable.

1944 the Nazi arrested my father elder brother and the men of the town to execute them! (Luckily they changed orders and were released). My mother took the family to a village 4 hours by foot, where her brother lived.I remember that in one room we were sleeping 10 people and we were washing mostly our faces every morning at the nearby small river.

February 24, 1946 with the civil war on, there was a battle with the communists who wanted to conquer the small town. Our house which was out of the town’s guarded perimeter.

They wanted to burn it and us alive: we could hear them discussing it, but my mother knew one of them an officer, so we were spared. Although with a machine gun they tried to kill some of us, but we were lying down and two bullets hit and remained on the opposite wooden shutter of the window! I keep it as a remembrance.

4 months before the same officer had informed my mother, not to allow my father and older brother 20 to go to the farm which was 1 hour walk to and close to the mountains, my father wanted to go but my mother said: over my dead body!

The communists arrested 50 men and decapitated all of them, but first they cut their ears, noses, and hands. The local guard went and picked the remains for burial. An aunt lost her husband and 2 adult sons. Their intention was to scare and to diminish the men’s power in the town.

In the winter we had nice nights at the fire place in the kitchen with the middle sister a story teller, about fairies and witches which were very long and made us afraid to go out at night.

At the elementary school we were having the American breakfast and also in the house the yellow cheese canned food and powder milk. There was also evaporated milk, but the principal and the one in charge they stole and sold for their pockets.

In the summer, life was hard as we had to go to the farm working 14 hours a day with plenty blisters on our hands and dark brown from the middle up caused by the sun rays (I paid the price after 30 years with mild skin cancer).

My father had the habit which expected us to wait for him for supper and he was coming from the café about 10 pm, we were sleepy, but didn’t dare not to wait.

We had a dog which imitated our crying and when fighting with my little brother he could know it from the howling of the dog and asked who was crying and of course I was to be beaten: hard slapping which made me dizzy, additionally the punishment was to face the wall during their eating, so I went to sleep hungry, mother never dared to feed me later. Once in summer I went to sea, 3 kilometers away with a school mate who was a born thief for fishing, I was 11 then, without the knowledge of the family.

I returned 4pm and father asked me where I was and why I didn’t inform the mother.

He beat me hard and at the end he was knocking my head on the wooden pole of the patio vine-arbor. The next day my forehead became swollen and black, the size of a young woman’s breast!

Father saw that and got scared and told me not to make him beat me again! He never did, but his angry voice was enough!

LOCAL MEDICINES: When swollen parts, mother smashed onions and put it on and bandaged it with some cut cloth.

The dogs had ticks in their ears and sometime the villagers had them also. They put olive oil which suffocated them.

Rabies was a common thing that time and when a human was bitten from a sick dog and started to show the effects (foam from the mouth) they sprayed water on the person to die instantly in order not to suffer. Our dog got it from another infected one and when my father tried to approach it tried to warn him off. My father called a friend of his to do the killing.

For the dry big lesions we were allowing the dogs to leek them, or another remedy was the sap from the fir trees which was used also on the big single boil on the neck (very painful).

Fresh wounds were washed with wine and mother put a garlic skin on and bandaged it.

Persistent coughing, mother put a brick on the fire then took it out when hot, sprayed it with vinegar, wrapped it with a towel and placed on the chest overnight. The one with heavy cold they put the person, in the freshly used country oven, wrapped with a blanket in order to sweat it off.

It was an unusual case with the farmers where suddenly the person (after an abrupt move with the big hoe) started to vomit continuously. (It happened to me and the horse brought me home). A neighbor came and she grabbed and pulled the arteries under my right arm (I felt like an electric current hit me there), in few minutes I was playing soccer. I learned from her and from that time I became also a specialist. We called it the navel was loose.

Toothache ouzo (Greek brandy) was a first soothing even with the babies, but when persistent pain, they used an herb that destroyed the teeth roots and they lost them. It happened to my mother when in her 20s. After that she was eating with her gums!

The best I remember from father and when in the 5th grade the teacher told him that I was top, he said to me that today I will not smoke so take the money and go to see the Tarzan movie

Mother beat me more times than my father. On the New Year after my father’s death, she told my older brother to beat me, because I was not feeling to eat on the New Year’s noon table! According to her I was going to bring bad luck for the whole year.

The best advice I got from my mother was after my father died: she said to me: I never went to school and I don’t know how to write my name so I don’t know how to advice you, go and God to enlighten you!

I was helping the priest who was also teacher in the elementary school and one day he said to me; when I will become successful to renew the worm eaten iconostasis! (It was prophetic as when I went to sea I helped a lot for the new wood carved one).

The head trustee of the church, one Sunday approached me and said that they were interested to pay my education in order to become a bishop, (it seemed that they had big ideas about my abilities): When I was in the 5th grade (which was together with the 6th and with the same teaching material), I finished with the highest grade of both the classes.

When 11, one of the school bullies, a heavy built boy of 13 beat me near my house and my sister 15, caught him and grabbed his head, held it down punching him in the middle of his back, till he partly collapsed!

He went crying to his father who was at the farm. His father found mine and complained that my sister beat his son! my father told him not to talk loudly, because his son was going to lose face! (It was a shame a boy to be beaten by a girl).

Father died 54 years old, a horrible death with 3 others from the poisoned wine. My first cousin mother of 7 children was jealous of her husband and wanted to kill him, she sent the 2 liters poisoned wine together with the breakfast with one of her daughters to the farm where, her husband, her father’s and mother’s side uncles, together with her brother drunk the wine and died.

Her husband was the God father of my sister and was asking me to drink also, but luckily I declined and it was the only time my father didn’t press me to drink.

I was 15 and in that time, another first cousin’s wife when 25, she was suddenly seized by evil spirits, my mother with other women and men were keeping a watch on her, because she wanted to fall in the well when seized and it was often, same time the roof tiles were crackling and strange noises were coming from the small house.

My mother was not afraid, but myself I never dared to go out night time or to pass from the road close to her house.

The 2 local priests tried to read the king’s Solomon exorcism, but they couldn’t read the words correctly, as she with a man’s voice was referring to their wrong doings. So they run away.

There was a strange man in the town, an hagiographer who managed to cure her.

He was the one who told my father to allow him to cure his first 3 year old son, who was dying from the evil eye: So they said.

My father a religious man told him that he was not going to offer his son to the devil!

He was taking the young men of the town out midnight and made them to hear tiles crackling and noises from the pile of stones falling.

I was helping my mother with the weaving a lot, with the promise that she will give me money to go to the movie theater. She promised but never gave me with the rightful excuse that she needed the money to buy matches and kerosene for the oil lamb.

When we were not at school or at work our entertainment was to play soccer.

The girls on Sundays or big holidays were gathering in the neighbor small fields and were singing and dancing.

The older girls once a year and a special day they got mirrors noon and they were reflecting the Sun rays into the well to see their future husband! The previous day they were eating salty bread in order to dream who was going to bring water to them.

Another way it was to put the special sugar coated almonds from the groom’s pocket, (the bride put plenty of them to give to her friends), under their pillows to dream their future partner.

After the wedding there were questions to the bride from her friends and of course plenty of giggling.

The first Friday after Easter, 21st of May, 1st, 20th, and 26th of July were local fairs, at the Saints’ small churches (once a year on the Saint’s day) which were located in selective places close to: natural fountains, small deep canals and plenty trees.

My Mother and sisters were preparing nice meals, as after the mass the congregation were sitting on the special weaved sheets on the grass, each family on their own with drinking, joking, singing and dancing.

We the young boys we made swings with ropes for the young girls and we cut straight sticks from the bay trees and with the knives we cut the soft bark, in mostly geometrical shapes and painted with poppy flowers which made our hands dark blue. The result was nice looking.

It lasted till 4pm and then everybody with their horse or mule coaches was on the road returning home. Usually they were racings with the drunken men coach drivers.

In the high school I continued the max. 1 hour studying and managed to have the highest ever written exams on the ancient Greek: 4rth grade.

2

SEA LIFE

After the Gymnasium 5th grade I passed the exams to the Mercantile Academy, where I learned the basics and how to judge the real good characters, a difficult and nearly impossible task;

The most difficult period was the once a year training trips.

The first one to the Greek islands was with an old converted fishing boat in the summer.

The last training trip was with a Navy Mine sweeper.

The ship was so badly rolling where nearly all the 40 students got seasick. I was from the lucky ones.

After 2 years I graduated and I tried to find a job on a ship.

1957 it was a big crisis and many ships were laid up, all over the world. Many seamen were discharged without pay at the foreign ports and as I heard later, that the girls from the bars (they were living from the working seamen before), were feeding them till they could find a paying job.

1. M/S AGIOS DIMITRIOS: JAN59JUN59 300DWT (=Dead Weight carrying capacity in tons).

January 1959 with the help of a friend I found work on a wooden motor ship 300 tons carrying capacity.

The shipping recruiting offices’ request